photo by Emree Weaver
Yes, Ryan Bingham grew up in the South. Texas, mostly. But there wasn’t much in the way of consistency to his upbringing, other than his family’s chronic existence on the wrong side of the tracks.
He was born in the small city of Hobbs, New Mexico, hard up against the Texas Panhandle. He grew up in the west Texas oil fields, then spent time as a teenage rodeo cowboy in towns all across the state. Along the way, he absorbed the Cajun culture of western Louisiana, the hardcore hip-hop favored by his Houston friends, and the border songs of the Mexican immigrants. Until he moved to California in 2007, he never lived in any one place for more than two years.
He’s enjoyed thrilling highs and suffered debilitating lows, sometimes all at once. While his career was taking off – he won both an Oscar and a Grammy for “The Weary Kind,” the theme song he wrote for the film “Crazy Heart” – he was coping with the tragic deaths of his mother, an alcoholic, and his father, who took his own life.
The losses put Bingham in a dark tunnel, and it took a while to crawl his way out. With the help of his wife, Anna Axster, and some inner soul-searching, Bingham has come back into the light. American Love Song, the third studio album from the Axster-Bingham indie label (after 2012’s Tomorrowland and 2015’s Fear and Saturday Night), takes all his influences – both musical and experiential – and unites them in Ryan Bingham’s best, most fully realized record to date.
The new album finds Bingham honing his creativity on two distinct levels, the personal and the cultural. American Love Song was recorded at Arlyn Studios and Public Hi-Fi in Austin with additional recording at Matter Music in Los Angeles.
Ryan Bingham stopped by Studio 1A while in town for two nights at One World Theatre. You can buy his new album American Love Songs in February but we’ve got a sneak peek at few in the player at the bottom of the post.
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Host: Jody Denberg
Producer: Deidre Gott
Cameras: Gabriel Perez, Hannah Edelman, Emree Weaver
Edit: Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon
